~~NARUTO~~
Rating: T
Title: Shattered
Date Written: 5 February 2011
Date Published: 5 February 2011
Theme and/or Summary: In the end, he'll always return.
Character(s) and/or Pairing(s): Sasuke
Word Count: 569
Dedication: To O.A.R for the song "Shattered" and the one person I'll always come back home to…
AN:/: If I owned either I'd have no interest in them. Sadly that is how I work. =C
I stumble in the rain as I speak to myself. The trees begin to resemble those of memories I've fought to keep down, locked away in the deepest part of myself. With each plodding step, the numbness begins to fade away. My shoulders begin to lean over myself in pain and fear. The thinning trees reveal a town wall and I can no longer breathe correctly.
Why am I here? Why did I return? I'd fought so hard to leave only to return?
My body gives out from exhaustion. My knees touch the soaked earth, a small section of the wall comes into view.
Small slashes mar the gray stone in patterns well known to me…
Pain rips at my empty chest as my mind races through trying to disprove the truth. It can't…I've returned home, to the very spot I buried his headband…and mine.
Back then all I thought I needed was time. I prayed to be at peace after doing those things to him. Hope had filled me with false pretenses of never having to come back to him... I had wanted to laugh when his blood ran over my hands…but I didn't. I couldn't.
Seeing his broken body robbed me of everything. I'd killed the one person who cared enough to try and bring me home…just as I killed my brother.
As with after my brother, I hadn't found out until after that it was me who I wanted to kill. When he whispered those damnable words with his last breath, my world shattered. He'd forgiven me…
My brother had been too weak to stop my family. He'd been too weak to kill me. He had put Konoha before me.
My only friend had always put me first. I ridiculed him for it, opting for the opinion of the masses. I had been to weak too save myself…I had been too weak to help the one who needed it more than me.
In the end, I could only ever turn around and come back to him, no matter how much pain I caused him…
The rain still falls as I fight for a reason to leave this place I've hallowed with his dearest possession. I find none.
Crawling closer on hands and knees-as I have never done-I feel my heart begin to slow. The blood that pours from my body weakens me. I know that I'm dying.
"I was fine without you!"
My voice shatters the silence as I scream. I keep screaming that lie until blood comes from my mouth as well. As many times as I've been broken, never, never have I come this close to shattering…
My hand slips from under me and I fall forward into the mud of the secret shrine I made just for him. He rests here, he'd never leave his headband. It was all he ever valued in life and had I asked him…he'd have given it up.
"Why couldn't you give up on me? I'd have come back…I always do. I don't want to come but I have to come back to you…I don't know why…please Naruto…please…"
One final river of crimson flows from my body as I feel myself slipping into the place where I can see him again. "I told you…I'll always come back to you."
I smile as I close my eyes for what I know will be the last time. "I'm coming home…"